The Friendly Tiger
by Stylin' Breeze
Summary: From the moment Yuuki Shibayama met him, Taketora Yamamoto struck him as a tiger: loud, lurking, present, voracious.


From the moment Yuuki met him, Taketora Yamamoto struck him as a tiger: loud, lurking, present, voracious.

* * *

It was a Friday after practice.

"So, I'm going to the new arcade opening Saturday. Kuroo, want to go with?"

Wrestling his head through his shirt, Shibayama gave a peek at the speaker, Tora.

"Nah, I got a date this weekend," Kuroo grinned cheekily.

"You? A date?" chided Yaku. "Yourself don't count." Letting the slight roll off him, Kuroo gloated about how he'd been asked out earlier that week. While some of the club derided him for not sharing the news sooner, Shibayama thought: 'I'm free this Saturday.'

"That's wonderful," Kai blithely complimented Kuroo before politely turning to Tora. "I have family in town, so I can't."

"I'll be busy making sure Kuroo doesn't blow his one chance at love," Yaku stated.

"I'll help you, Yaku!" Lev eagerly volunteered.

"Yakkun, if you ruin this for me, I'll kill you!" exploded Kuroo.

Shibayama wanted to speak up, but Tora looked at the club's setter.

"Yo, Kenma. You like this sort of stuff, don't you?"

"Arcades' first days suck. There's too many people, they're all sweaty, half the games don't work, and it's loaded with haughty amateurs," he blathered as he tapped on his console. Tora growled in annoyance. Shibayama was going to speak again when Inuoka raised an eager hand.

"I'll go with you! Ah, wait," he immediately backtracked, "I have a test on Monday." He laughed nervously, having zero confidence in his ability to pass.

"What subject?" Fukunaga asked.

"English."

"Oh, I'll help you study!" Shouhei offered.

"Really? Thanks!" Inuoka's face lit up like a streetlight. Fukunaga gave him a thumbs up.

"Sorry. I won't be able to go," Shouhei apologized to Tora.

"You're all no fun!" Tora exclaimed bitterly.

As the last person not yet spoken for, Shibayama, now fully dressed, was about to at last step forward when Tora read the clock on the wall.

"Dang it! Gotta go!" He ripped out of the gym like a tiger fleeing captivity. Disappointed, Yuuki collected his stuff and headed out with the rest of the team.

* * *

Alone inside the bus shelter outside the school's front gates, Shibayama read the text message from his mom.

"_What are you doing tomorrow?_" she asked.

Shibayama thought for a second. "Nothing," he typed back.

He put his phone away and exhaled when Tora jogged past, the latter doing a double take upon seeing the young libero.

"What's up, dude?"

"Oh? My bus is late. Uh, didn't you have something to do?" he squirmed.

Tora looked greatly embarrassed at the question. "Oh. My teacher wanted to talk about makeup work cos I failed my history quiz."

"Oh," Yuuki said, unsure what else to say.

Truthfully Tora was somehow scary to him. On the court or surrounded by the rest of the club, the overwhelming tiger was bearable, but there was something intense about him in isolation. Shibayama was starting to consider himself lucky he hadn't expressed interest in the arcade outing since no one else in the club would have been there.

Even now, faced with the wild tiger's thuggish mannerisms (as much as they were a put-on) and rugged appearance, Shibayama appreciated having the bus shelter glass to hide behind for safety.

"Where you goin'?" Tora asked suddenly. Yuuki was more surprised than he should have been at the query. He almost stuttered telling him what neighborhood he lived in.

Tora's eyes lit up.

"Heh. This might get me home faster then," Yamamoto shrugged since he had missed his train and since Yuuki's house was relatively close to his own. And so he joined Shibayama inside the shelter.

Yuuki nervously slid over on the bench to make room for his teammate, clutching his backpack in his lap. Tora dumped his kit bag between them and stretched his legs, using his palms on the bench for support. The silence that followed didn't last long enough to become awkward as the bus arrived presently.

Tora chafed for the entirety of the mostly silent trip aboard the standing-room-only bus. When another passenger crammed on and brushed Tora in the process, he almost snarled back, making Shibayama jump.

"It's always like this?" the second-year questioned gruffly.

"Yeah," Yuuki nervously giggled. He liked the convenience of the bus as far as it dropping him off at his street corner, even if the train was faster.

Tora randomly peered out the window and by fortune caught a glimpse of a certain arcade advertising its grand opening tomorrow.

"Oh, dude! You didn't tell me this bus goes by here!" he exclaimed.

"By where?" Shibayama, too self-conscious around the spiker to notice the surroundings, faltered.

"I can take this bus tomorrow. Sure'll beat walkin'," Tora said, and Shibayama felt a spark of pride that his random run-in had done a service to his feral teammate.

"Hey. You wanna come?"

And Shibayama jerked.

But the tiger had a soft grin on his face.

Actually, when he was smiling, he was actually kind of endearing.

"Oh, well, I guess I could," he mumbled, instantly shocked at the words that came out of his mouth.

"Really? Awesome!" Yamamoto slapped Shibayama's back so hard the wind was knocked out of the littler boy.

And then Yuuki remembered he had been texting his mom.

"_Can you help me paint the living room tomorrow?_" she had texted back.

Yuuki frowned, not unnoticed by the spiker. "Actually, I can't."

"What's up?" Tora asked, intrusively peering at Shibayama's messages. Yuuki yanked the screen out of sight, but it was too late. "You're helping your mom paint? That's legit. I'll help if you want it."

Shibayama blinked, unable to process the last sentence.

Yamamoto continued. "My dad runs a paint shop. I've helped him a lot. It'd probably be better than sweating at some arcade, like Kenma says."

"We can go Sunday if you want," Yuuki offered, much to his own surprise. But he felt comfortable all of a sudden. Yesterday, he might have been unnerved at the thought of the burly teen coming over to his house even.

But suddenly Taketora Yamamoto didn't seem so much like a tiger.

Or, he _did_. Just, a friendly tiger.

"Hm? Yeah, sure. Afternoon's good. Bus run Sunday?"

Yuuki nodded. At the mention of bus, he suddenly realized where they were in town and frantically snapped the stop cord.

"Cool. Text me your address and all," Tora said as the bus slowed to a halt at Shibayama's street corner.

"Actually, I live right over here," he pointed.

"Oh, cool," Tora said, memorizing the look of the intersection. He didn't know this part of town very well and tried to think where his house would be from here. He quickly asked Shibayama before the other boy exited.

"Um," Yuuki gulped, "we passed that 15 minutes ago."

Tora blinked. "Dang it," he glowered.

And then there was a noise, coming from Yamamoto's belly—that of a hungry, tropical cat. He hadn't stopped for a snack like he usually did before his commute home. Yuuki blushed at the sound, and Tora blushed likewise at being caught.

Before, Yuuki might have been disturbed by the growling beast, but Taketora Yamamoto wasn't a ravenous tiger.

He was a fun-loving cat.

"You want to eat dinner at my place?"

* * *

Monday morning…

Tora and Yuuki entered the gym together, Yamamoto griping about being walloped by a mystery gamer on the arcade's second day, which the duo eventually discovered was an incognito Kenma.

"I wonder how Kuroo's date went," Shibayama asked aloud.

When they spotted their captain murderously chasing the third-year libero around the gym—Lev desperately telling Yaku to move his "shrimpy little legs" faster—they got their answer.


End file.
